You all know I’ve been pushing for getting manga online. It’s something I believe it, and think can really succeed, but only if it’s done right. But, I’m sorry to say, Digital Manga Publishing isn’t doing it right. And it’s not because most of their “launch” titles are YAOI. DMP makes it’s bread and butter off of BL, which hopefully is what helps supports it’s non-BL line (the Vampire Hunter D manga, etc). It’s the way they’ve decided to make it available. DMP has chosen the subscription model for digital content. You “rent” a title for 72 hours for about $4 ($3 special for launch it seems), and then, if you really like it, you can “buy” the book for another $2. In other words, on the second purchase you have unlimited views of the title. Here’s where I’ve got the problem. You have just spent $5-6 on a title, which, granted is half the print cost, but you don’t get to actually download it. It stays on their servers, and you can read it anytime, through their thoroughly annoying, flash based viewer. All you are doing with this model is purchasing the rights to view a title for as…
I few years ago, I got into podcasts. I like to listen to things while I work, and the radio and music got boring, so I started searching through podcasts. One of the great things about podcasts, is that you can find something on just about any topic, since anyone with a computer, a microphone and some software can record one. The first topics I searched for: anime and manga. The anime was easy to find. Anime podcasts are a dime a dozen, and I tried out a lot before I settled on a select few. Podcasts for manga, well, that was a lot harder to find. Some of the anime podcasts I got also do manga, but I really wanted to find something that was only manga. Those are fewer and very far between. But, I have found a few.
This past year, anime companies have been claiming that fansubs are killing the anime industry as we know it in the US. The people involved with dubs are especially vocal about this, the producers, directors and actors, since it is their side of production that is most affected. Here’s a thought for these people; instead of crying doom and gloom for the anime industry, why don’t they try an area that fansubs CAN’T compete with them on? Audio Dramas based on manga.
The Japanese are at it again… Digital manga via Nintendo devices is in the news again. This time though, it’s from the people that it matters most; the manga publishers. From a news article from Manga Jouhou, the four largest manga publishers Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shueisha, and Shogakukan have formed a joint venture with a software house that will bring digital manga to the Wii console. The venture is called Librica and is the first serious step from the creators of the content to bring to a wider audience.
ANN has reported on a press release from Suncorp, a digital distribution company in Japan. Leiji Matsumoto, the creator of iconic titles such as Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999, and Space Battleship Yamato, is creating an original online comic project that will appear on Nintendo Wii’s Wiiware store sometime this summer. For now, the announcement only states this will be available in Japan, but it also states that the unnamed comic “is aimed at his [Matsumoto’s] global fans.” Now, a new series from Matsumoto is exciting enough. But seeing it distributed online through the Wii is even cooler! Even though there is no official announcement of overseas distribution, the mention of how global his work is does give one hope that there will be. The Wiiware store so far only has older and/or independent games. This branching out into other medium seems to show Nintendo’s commitment to make the Wii more of an entertainment console than just gaming as originally stated. But, I do like this slower roll-out than Sony’s or Microsoft’s proclamation to take over your entertainment system with their consoles. At least with the Wii, you can also get games and demos for the DS, which…
While going through some old ANN news feeds, I picked up a few news items I want to comment on: DS Vision to go live in June: This just sort of passed right by in one of thier Daily Brief posts, but I want to give it more attention. This was first announced last November, and now it seems to be coming to fruition.
At the recent “State of the Manga Industry” panel at NYCC, representatives from manga publishers from Del Rey, Viz. and Tokyopop talked about the health of manga sales and fielded questions and concerns. As a whole, they agreed that the industry was “strong and healthy”, with titles shaking out into one of three categories; the “definitely will sell” or A list titles, the “probably will sell”or B list titles, and the “must compete to sell” or C list titles, which is where the majority of titles fall. The big issue is of course with the last category; how to get these books into the right hands. Promoting awareness of titles was mentioned as a problem for all publishers. Why? Even if most of the sales of titles come from brick and mortar retail, getting the word out about titles shouldn’t be such an issue in the internet age. If manga publishers would make better use of their online resources, C list titles would have a better chance. Here are some things I think they should consider.
As I’ve described before, the Kindle has a lot of potential, but it seemed to be wasted in the 1.0 version. Well, apparently that wasn’t quite true. There is more potential in the Kindle, they just didn’t want you to see it. Fortunately, there are people out there who are never satisfied with what we’re given. I learned about this while listening to Leo Laporte’s Tech Guy podcast. Igor Skochinsky has a blog called Reversing Everything. He got a hold of a Kindle and decided to see what made it tick. Taking it apart both physically and hacking the software, he found some interesting programs residing in the Kindle, just out of reach of the user; a picture viewer, minesweeper game, and some GPS capabilities through the browsers. The program of interest to mangaphiles is of course the picture viewer. It allows for a “picture” folder to be created, and the pictures can then be loaded into a sub folder to create a “book” that will appear on the home screen. It’s a little slow at turning pages, but will view jpg, png, and gif. So if you read a lot of scanalations, this might be worth a try. A…
In a previous post, I spoke about the Kindle as being a possibility for reading electronic books and manga. But, a little searching around the web has brought to light another possibility that is much more inexpensive, and more readably available. As a matter of fact, you may have on in your home right now! It’s the Nintendo DS. Nintendo’s newest handheld game platform can be a tool for more than just games.While Nintendo has been announcing products that bring manga to the Japanese DS users, we here in the US can only hope and pray that these products are brought over. But, thanks to good, old, hacker ingenuity, (and some hardware from Asia), programmers and others can and often do make their own programs, or “home brews” to run on the DS. For more information on Home Brews for the DS, see this wiki. For purveyors of portable digital manga (and who are willing to risk their DS) would be two home brew programs: PictoDS and Comic Book DS. A review of the software running on a DS, with pictures can be found here. It uses the dual screens and touch screen to really give a customizable reading experience….
The Kindle has been getting a lot of press lately. It was feature on the cover of Newsweek, it’s back ordered because of the demand, but is it really all that the hype is making it out to be? And what’s this going to mean to manga and other j-media? The Kindle is Amazon’s entry into ebooks. Since Amazon sells books, this seems to make sense. The Kindle uses a new technology know as “electronic paper”. It uses black ink, in a way similar to an etch-a-sketch, to electronically charge the ink so that it clings to the screen. This gives the appearance and readability of paper without the flicker or glare of a computer screen. It has wireless connectivity that makes getting books and other files fast and easy. No need to search for a WiFi hotspot. Anywhere Sprint service is available, so is your Kindle. You can buy and download books from the Amazon Kindle Store with the keypad at the bottom of the reader. It comes with an account and email address for your purchases and correspondence. You can also download magazines and daily newspapers, so no more paper cluttering your house or needing recycling. It can…
The Japanese are doing it again. According to ANN, am3, a maker of data cards with anime movies of them for the Gameboy Advanced and DS in Japan, has announced a new system that will allow DS owners to download anime, manga and other content to SD cards and be viewed on the DS. This new system, to be called DSvision will include a starter kit consisting of a micro SD card, micro card adapter for the DS, and USB card reader. There will also be an online store that will start with 300 titles at start up in March of 2008, that will be expanded to 10,000 by 2010. And, unlike other addons for the DS, this one is the first approved by Nintendo, and the first to have an online store tied to it. This is definitely an interesting idea. The DS is already well established as an entertainment machine, and users have been coming up with their own hacks to put their own games and other applications on the DS. I can actually see reading manga on it as being more plausible than on an iphone. The DS has 2 LCD color screens, each 3 inches in…
Anime News Network featured a news story about Voice Bank, a software company based in Japan, that wants to put manga at your fingertips. Back in July, Voice Bank demonstrated software to convert digital manga to fit the iphone screen, and was seeking partners to deliver content in the US. Then just a few days ago in Hong Kong, showed off digital manga available through Safari (the iphone web browser), as the Digital Manga Project. Right now, it is still just an experiment, as they are continuing to research the best way to deliver the content over a WiFi connection as well as new hardware and software. Now, I’m not a big iphone/ipod fan. I don’t care for Steve Jobs and his totalitarian attitudes towards his customers, ie. limiting iphones to AT&T, not allowing phones to be unlocked or have third party apps and brick the phones of people who do with itunes updates. But I do have to admit what Voice Bank and the Digital Manga Project have done actually looks pretty good. The image is clean and is easily seen on the screen, unlike the conversions Tokyopop did of their OEL manga for the Sony E-Reader. Despite the…